Parky at the Pictures (In Cinemas 17/5/2018)

Furious at being dumped after 10 years by photographer boyfriend Grégoire Monsaingeon, Laetitia Dosch headbutts his apartment door and finds herself being examined in hospital by doctor Jean-Christophe Folly. However, each routine question sparks a tirade, as Dosch accuses Monsaingeon of ingratitude because she had been the subject of the picture that had made his name. She begrudgingly reveals that she has little contact with her estranged parents, but flies off the handle again when Folly asks if she has ever had any incapacitating illnesses. Losing control, she smashes a wall fixture and is placed in a side room so that Folly can monitor her progress. On waking, however, Dosch pulls the drip out of her arm and steals a red coat draped over the next bed and makes her escape.

Following an intercom argument with Monsaingeon, Dosch takes his fluffy white cat, Muchacha, and wraps her hair around a toilet roll holder to attend a fancy dress party as Amy Winehouse. Drinking heavily, Dosch chats abrasively and evasively with some of the other guests before taking over the dance floor and insulting pregnant hostess Marie Rémond when she complains about her bringing a cat into her apartment. Talking herself out of a bed for the night, Dosch accepts an offer from champagne salesman Jean-René Lemoine to crash on his couch. However, he proves a little frisky and Dosch hits the streets again, with Muchacha in a cardboard box.

Pushing past the workman repairing Monsaingeon's door, Dosch flips through the pictures on his camera and is unimpressed by the images of new model Bélinda Saligot. Stealing the cat carrier, she checks into a hotel, where she watches Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life (1959), while taking a bath. However, desk clerk Philippe Vincent complains about Muchacha's meowing and, rather than move on, Dosch takes the creature to the nearby cemetery and deposits it in an open crypt. When a storm blows up in the night, however, she feels a pang of remorse and promises vet Agathe Desche that she will pay for the cat's treatment as soon as she can. But she only makes loose change from pawning a few knick-knacks.

Wandering around a mall in Montmartre, Dosch asks knicker bar clerk Lou Valentini if she has any jobs before getting into a heated discussion with security guard Souleymane Seye Ndiaye about Paris being an unfriendly city and all men being alike. Sitting in a square to people watch, Dosch spots mother Nathalie Richard and follows her to a nearby cinema. She is far from pleased to see her troubled daughter, however, and tells her to stay away from her.

Mooching around the Métro, Dosch sees a poster for Monsaingeon's latest exhibition and tries to keep a lid on her motions. As she travels aimlessly to kill time, she notices Léonie Simaga looking at her from across the carriage and decides not to disabuse her when her heterochromic eyes (one green and one hazel) cause Simaga to mistake Dosch for an old classmate from Venissieux. They go for a drink and Simaga expresses her relief that Dosch has broken up with her unsuitable boyfriend. She's a lesbian and teasingly forgives Dosch for not being that way inclined, although she makes Simaga laugh when she leaves for work by standing in the window and removing her top.

Simaga promises to help Dosch find a job, but she takes matters into her own hands by replying to dancer Erika Sainte's advertisement for a babysitter and she is delighted that the job comes with an attic room. Fibbing that she is an honest student needing to pay some bills, Dosch exploits Sainte's failure to secure references and moves in with Muchacha. But finds it hard to connect with prissy six year-old Lila-Rose Gilberti, who looks down her nose at her eccentric attempts to make her laugh.

Despite admitting that she's not very intelligent, Dosch also lands a job in the mall and discovers that workmate Emma Benestan is working part-time to fund her thesis. She bumps into Ndiaye again and Benestan reassures her that he's a nice guy, even though he has compared Dosch to a wild monkey. Feeling more settled, Dosch calls Monsaingeon and he is non-committally friendly in asking for his cat back. However, Sainte is furious when she discovers the cat and feels betrayed when Dosch takes Gilberti to the mall and feeds her candy floss and lets Ndiaye carry her around on his shoulders. The little girl enjoys herself and clings to Dosch when Sainte admonishes her and accuses her of living a fantasy life that could endanger her daughter.

Shortly after persuading Ndiaye to look after Muchacha, Dosch runs into Rémond and is embarrassed to be seen in her work clothes. She feels faint and learns from doctor Audrey Bonnet that she's pregnant. Concocting a story about missing a pill after returning from a trip to Mexico, Dosch skirts Bonnet's questions about her circumstances in claiming that they could be good friends if they had met in another way. Keeping the news from Monsaingeon, Dosch takes Gilberti swimming and his hurt to discover that Sainte has advertised for her replacement.

She cuts her forehead again in butting a mirror in a public washroom. But she feels better when she meets up with Simaga in a nightclub and they come back to her room. However, Simaga finds a letter bearing Dosch's real name and accuses her of being a con artist who wheedles money out of people by pretending to be old friends. They slap each other's faces, as Dosch insists that she has only striven to be the person Simaga wanted her to be and they seem to spend the night together.

After work, Dosch takes the train to the suburbs and uses a key hidden by the door to let herself into the family home. Richard tries to throw her out, but Dosch clings to the bannister and is allowed to stay for supper. She cries at the end of the meal and Richard touches her gently on the shoulder. The following day, Monsaigngeon tracks her down to the mall after a tip-off from Rémond and he demands to know what she has been ignoring his calls. He also asks for his cat back and is blindsided when Dosch reveals she's pregnant. Having ascertained that it's his, he leaves because Ndiaye is staring at them. But they dine together and Monsaigngeon urges Dosch to quit her job and move in with him.

Despite feeling nostalgic for things she hasn't done yet, she defends her decisions and insists she is happy at the mall. On her way home, she calls on Ndiaye to collect Muchacha and she's amused to see her curled up on the bed with his sleeping daughter. Even though she's just eaten, she accepts his offer of food and she coerces him into drinking wine. They tumble into bed together, but Ndiaye falls asleep as Dosch struggles to remove his trousers. When she wakes next morning, she pulls back the curtains to let the sunlight fall on his skin.

Sprucing up, Dosch attends a private viewing of Monsaingeon's show. But, having returned Muchacha, she informs him that she is not keeping the baby and has to fight him off when he tries to force himself upon her. She tidies the bed before discharging herself from the clinic and cleans Sainte's attic room before breathing on the window and staring out across the city at the start of her next phase of pinballing uncertainty.

French cinema is perhaps the best in the world for supporting female film-makers and Léonor Serraille seizes her opportunity to shine with both hands. She owes much to Émilie Noblet's fluid photography, Valérie Valéro's thoughtfully revealing interiors and Clémence Carre's zesty editing, which captures both the spirit of Paris and the furious effervescence of Laetitia Dosch's astonishing performance. Julie Roue's alternately jaunty and poignant score is also notable. But it's the boldness of Serraille's storytelling that's most impressive, as she takes ownership of the more implausible contrivances that keep Dosch spinning like a top between empathetic strangers and emotionally exhausted loved ones.

Echoes abound of such recent rites of passage as Sean Baker's Starlet and Noah Baumbach's Frances Ha (both 2012), although the presence of the scene-stealing Muchacha also brings to mind Blake Edwards's Breakfast at Tiffany's (1963) and Joel and Ethan Coen's Inside Llewyn Davis (2013). But Dosch's fearless display also recalls the performances of Corinne Marchand and Sandrine Bonnaire in a couple of similarly themed Agnès Varda classics, Cleo From 5 to 7 (1962) and Vagabond (1985). As British audiences were denied the chance to see Dosch in Justine Triet's La Bataille de Solférino (2013), they might remember her from fleeting glimpses in Maïwenn's Moi Roi and Catherine Corsini's Summertime (2015). By making such a brittle and gauchely resistible character so resourceful and affectingly fascinating, however, she has now emerged as the Gallic Greta Gerwig.

There might have been a time when an emerging talent was branded `the next Evan Rachel Wood'. But, since earning a Golden Globe nomination for her lead performance in Catherine Hardwicke's Thirteen (2003), Wood has struggled to achieve a major breakthrough on the big screen and has enjoyed greater success with such TV projects as Mildred Pierce (2011), for which she received an Emmy nomination, and Westworld (2016-). She provides a reminder of what a fine actress she is, however, in Allure, the feature debut of Carlos and Jason Sanchez, the sibling Canadian photographers who are renowned for their dramatic large-scale images and holographic video installations.

First seen having an unsatisfactorily abrasive sexual encounter with a blindfolded stranger, thirtysomething Evan Rachel Wood works for father Denis O'Hare's cleaning company in an unnamed North American city. On being hired by new client Maxim Roy in a leafy suburb, Wood makes awkward small talk with her 16 year-old daughter, Julia Sarah Stone, who is a talented pianist. Noticing the Nirvana poster on Stone's wall, Wood admits to getting goose pimples at the thought of seeing the band live and shows Stone her bare arm.

Despite tensions dating back to incidents in their past, Wood and O'Hare get along reasonably well. But Stone resents the fact that Roy is such a controlling perfectionist when it comes to her music and hates her for the fact she is planning to sell the house and move in with her latest boyfriend. When Wood finds her crying, she assures Stone that she doesn't have to do what her mother tells her and welcomes her with open arms when Stone runs away from home. Indeed, on their first night as housemates, she claims that it feels as though Stone has always lived there and, following a session driving go-karts, she invites her guest to share her bed rather than bunk down on the couch. Playing it cool, Wood kisses Stone on the mouth before rolling over to sleep and the teenager wonders whether this Wood wants to be more than just friends. 

The next day, Wood is called into O'Hare's office to meet detective Michael Dozier, who is making inquiries about Stone's whereabouts. Wood claims to have no information and when Stone suggests calling Roy to let her know she is okay, Wood makes her feel guilty by claiming she could get into serious trouble for lying to the police in order to protect her. When Stone insists she can explain things to her mom, Wood asks when Roy has ever listened to her and Stone is unsure what to do for the best.

Following a night of vodka and dope, Wood locks Stone in a basement bedroom while she goes to work. She returns to remind Stone that she will go to jail if she contacts home and she persuades her to obey and trust her, as she is the only person who has her best interests at heart. Having discovered that the police have called off their search, Wood throws herself on Stone's mercy and claims she has been acting oddly because she can't imagine life without her and Stone cradles Wood's head when she bursts into tears.

Although they have kissed, Stone remains hesitant and resists an embrace when Wood buys her an electronic keyboard. However, she jokes that she is her sugar mamma when they go to a karaoke club, where Wood looks on enviously as Stone chats to a guy at the bar. She becomes even more jealous when she invites wheelchair-bound brother Joe Cobden to her birthday party and he posits forming a rap band with Stone. Wheeling him out to the car, Wood tells him to stop pretending he's black and gets into such a rage when he suggests that she finds a girlfriend her own age that she lays into Stone for ruining her special day. Desperate to avoid offending her, Stone cuddles Wood after headbutts the door and sinks to the floor muttering an abject apology.

The next morning, Stone packs a bag, but can't bring herself to board the bus. Instead, she returns home through the autumnal leaves and allows Wood to seduce her in bed. However, she winces when Wood gets a little rough and is uncertain what to do when she rolls off her and turns her back. Wood seeks release in another anonymous encounter in a motel. But the stranger is in cahoots with her last pick-up and he creeps into the room while they are having sex and assaults her. Distraught at the state of his daughter's face, O'Hare drives her back to the motel to collect her car. He vows to kill the men if he ever catches up with them, but Wood tells Stone that her father had beaten her after she had resisted his advances. She urges her lover to go to the police, but Wood insists on keeping things in the family, only to have a blazing row with O'Hare when she ducks out of the weekly works' outing to dine with Stone and he hopes that she hasn't been stalking again.

Hurt by Wood's decision to quit, O'Hare calls to the house he bought her to apologise. She's less than pleased to see him and tells Stone to finish her meal while she talks to him on the doorstep. He tries to apologise for his misdeeds and Wood can't understand why he has chosen now to rake up the past. However, she is furious with Stone when she comes to the door and spits on O'Hare in calling him a pervert. Wood bundles her inside, as O'Hare shuffles away regretting his poor sense of timing. But Wood blames herself for the mess and bawls on the bed when Stone tries to console her.

The next night, Wood and Stone peel off their tops and cling to each other on the sofa. However, when they go to swimming together, and the lights go off in the pool, Stone takes the opportunity to grab her boots and a cardigan from her locker and rush into the street. Powerless to stop her, Wood calls on O'Hare as the Christmas snow starts to fall and informs him that she needs to be alone for a while. He understands and wishes her well and a smile plays across Wood's lips as she drives towards her fresh start. 

There's been a number of abduction dramas of late and the Sanchez brothers offer few insights that haven't already been explored in the likes of Markus Schleinzer's Michael (2011), Jennifer Lynch's Chained (2012), Lenny Abrahamson's Room (2015) and Ben Young's Hounds of Love (2016). They make effective use of Emmanuel Fréchette's disorientating interiors and have cinematographer Sara Mishara employ shallow focus to reinforce Stone's confinement and Wood's lack of foresight. But their screenplay carelessly marginalises both Roy's search for her daughter and the police investigation, while it makes it far too easy for the volatile Wood to become obsessed with a vulnerable ingenue and for her to convince this seemingly intelligent teenager (who barely knows her) that she is the answer to all her problems.

Notwithstanding these flaws and (despite solid turns from Stone and O'Hare) the sketchiness of the secondary characterisation, the brothers are able to count on the excellence of an actress with the nous to recognise a plumb role when she sees one. In her youth. Wood appeared in such similarly themed pictures as Marcos Siega's Pretty Persuasion and David Jacobson's Down in the Valley (both 2005) and she pushes the largely impassive Stone's buttons with sinister precision, as her single white female slips unsettlingly between cool calculation and emotional fragility. Consequently, the predator always seems to be as much a victim as her captive and it says much for the potency of Wood's performance that, no matter what dysfunctional her arrested adolescent behaviour becomes, audience sympathy remains with her throughout.

Since his death in March 1999, the famously secretive Stanley Kubrick has been the subject of numerous documentaries. The best remains brother-in-law Jan Harlan's Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001), but devotees should also check out Gary Leva's Lost Kubrick: The Unfinished Films of Stanley Kubrick (2007), Jon Ronson's Stanley Kubrick's Boxes (2008), Rodney Ascher's Room 237 (2012) and Alex Infascelli's S Is for Stanley (2015), which profiled his long-serving chauffeur, Emilio D'Alessandro. Curiously, there's no mention of him in Tony Zierra's Filmworker, which turns the spotlight on another of Kubrick's tirelessly loyal acolytes, Leon Vitali, who gave up a promising career as an actor to pander to the exiled American auteur's every whim.

As Leon Vitali declares in voiceover that life is like a journey with many changes of train, an unseen onlooker compares him to a moth whose wings were singed by the bright light that was Stanley Kubrick. But Vitali knew from the moment he saw 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and A Clockwork Orange (1971) that he wanted to work for the greatest film director around.

Vitali made his name on stage and in television in shows like The Fenn Street Gang, Follyfoot. Z Cars and Crown Court. He was lauded the TV fanzines for his blonde locks and trendy dress sense and even made films like Jack Gold's Conflict (1973), with Trevor Howard and Martin Sheen. But he was astonished when Kubrick cast him as Lord Bullingdon in Barry Lyndon (1975) and we see him for the first time as an older man in his bandana describing the warm thrill that passed through him when he first shook hands with the man who would change his life.

He recalls how Kubrick was very restless on set, as he sought new vantage points to view a scene and then changed the lenses in the camera before deciding to scrap that approach and go for something entirely different. Vitali instantly bought into this philosophy and went along with endlessly reshooting the scene in which he enters a palatial room with his young stepbrother wearing his shoes, as he realised that Kubrick was looking for the emotional rhythm of the scene rather than just capturing words and images. He explains how his long speech to mother Marisa Berenson was filmed in a series of long takes, while Ryan O'Neal (who had taken the title role) pops up to apologise for hitting Vitali so hard in the scuffle that ends the sequence, although he protests that Kubrick had egged him on because he wanted to feel the severity of the blows.

After one session, Vitali was nervous when Kubrick asked him to stay behind, as several actors  had already been fired for not knowing their lines. But Kubrick wanted Vitali to remain on set and revealed that he was planning some new scenes to justify keeping him around. Four decades on, the excitement of having such faith shown in him is still etched on Vitali's face. He meets up with O'Neal to reminisce about what he had to eat in order to make him vomit on screen and Vitali also confides that he mentioned to Kubrick during the last days of the shoot that he had grown interested in the mechanics of film-making and Kubrick sent him a book of artistic masterpieces to encourage him to make a serious study of the craft.

Following the release of the film, Vitali's stock rose and drama school classmate Brian Capron admits to being impressed and jealous that he had been in a Kubrick picture. He was offered seasons at the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, but did Calvin Floyd's movie Terror of Frankenstein (1977) on the proviso he could watch the editing process. Then, Kubrick sent him a copy of Stephen King's The Shining and asked Vitali if he would like to go the United States to find a kid to play the five year-old Danny Torrance.

Director Mike Alfreds joins Capron in saying that he was surprised that Vitali gave up his acting career so readily, but directors Nick Redman and Brian Jamieson can understand him wanting to work with a master. We see Vitali scrambling around in the attic to find notebooks and correspondence because Kubrick paid as close an interest in how past films were being screened in cinemas around the world as he did in future projects. He recalls how Kubrick wrote everything down and how he also got into the habit of scribbling notes at every opportunity. He shows us a notebook (`The Book of Lies') in which he fabricated Danny Lloyd's working hours to get round the strict rules on child labour on a film set.

Vitali remembers meeting the boy at an audition in Chicago. Some 4000 hopefuls had applied and Lloyd was rather sulky when his mom tried to prompt him into making an impression on Vitali. But they hit it off by staring at each other in silence and Vitali knew he had found his Danny when Lloyd piped up that he liked his suit. Vitali also describes how he had come across Lisa and Louise Burns to play the phantom girls Danny encounters at the Overlook Hotel. He remembers their mother bringing them in at the end of a day's casting and how they brought to mind Diane Arbus's 1967 photo, `Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey'. Sadly, however, the now 50 year-old sisters don't appear in this film.

On set, Vitali's rapport with Lloyd meant that Kubrick trusted him to be his unofficial acting coach and we see footage from the `making of' documentary of Vitali running along a corridor in front of the camera as a reassuring presence. Lloyd remains grateful for the attention Vitali lavished on him, even though he also had duties running lines with Shelley Duvall, who was playing Lloyd's mother. He had also been entrusted with taking location photographs of hotels during his Stateside casting trip and Kubrick had been so pleased with his efforts that he had passed on tips from his own early days as a photographer about shutter speeds and lighting.

Vitali smiles as he remembers how people were always surprised by how gentle Kubrick was when they met him for the first time, as he had the reputation of being a perfectionist taskmaster. But he admits that he saw another side of him during the making of Full Metal Jacket (1987). Matthew Modine jokes that Kubrick seemed so dependent upon Vitali that he likened him to Victor Frankenstein's assistant, Igor. The late R. Lee Ermey remembers being hired as a technical adviser on the film and hoping to get the role of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, even though Kubrick had no initial intention of using him. But the ex-Marine didn't know the meaning of defeat and made sure the director knew what he could do. This led to Tim Colceri being demoted to the role of the Door Gunner and he still resents the fact that Kubrick sent Vitali with a note to replace him after eight months of work and suggests that the director lacked the stones to do the right thing.

Modine veered between feeling sorry for Vitali, as he was always being pushed around, and wondering whether he was spying on the cast for Kubrick. By the end of the production, however, he had come to realise that Vitali was just a nice guy trying to ensure that everyone did their best. Ermey saw him as an ally and recalls doing improvisation sessions with Vitali and Kubrick that helped shape his dialogue. Indeed, he claims that he owes his career to Vitali's dedication and Colceri also recalls how Vitali went up in a helicopter with him (because Kubrick wouldn't fly) in order to help him refine his brief, but memorable role.

Ermey and Modine admit they are too selfish to have sacrificed their own careers in the way that Vitali did and Warners executive Julian Senior says he was a jack of all trades. Vitali even found himself doing foley work on Full Metal Jacket because Kubrick felt he had the ability do it. As a result, he worked long days on set and at the Kubrick estate, alongside such trusted insiders as Tony Frewin and Jan Harlan. He also learned about colour timing and Deluxe colour lab chief Colin Mossman recalls Vitali being present whenever Kubrick was. But Vitali also did research into the kind of weapons that might be used in for the unrealised Wartime Lies and ensured that the DVD packaging for Kubrick's films conformed precisely to his specifications. Moreover, he kept tabs of every print of Kubrick's films and conducted a lengthy search for the original negative of Dr Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).

Senior also credits Vitali with supervising the making of trailers for Kubrick's films around the world and notes that he always thought of things that nobody at the studio had even conceived. Warren Liberfarb, the former president of Warner Home Video, remembers Vitali going around the UK taking pictures of display stands following the video release of Full Metal Jacket to ensure it was seen to best effect in every store. Vitali admits that Kubrick often wrote letters using his name to get what he wanted while not appearing to be a control freak. But Vitali is fine with this, as he saw himself as a `filmworker' whose job was to help a great artist get his work seen in the best possible way. He was sometimes nettled that Kubrick hid him away from studio executives, as he felt his hippie look didn't fit the authority image that came across in his manner. But he was happy to do whatever Kubrick asked because he knew he always wanted the best for the right reasons.

Former Warner exec Steve Southgate and Eyes Wide Shut (1999) crew member Lisa Leone admit to being in awe (and even being intimidated) by Kubrick and Senior claims that the force of his personality and his shifting moods in pursuit of perfection makes you admire Vitali all the more for putting up with it and doing so with uncomplaining grace. But Vitali admits there were times when he wondered why he bothered, such as the Christmas Eve when Kubrick had given him both barrels for leaving flare in a shot (having previously insisted that it didn't bother him) and then presented him a box of gifts. Yet, the workaholic director was on the phone numerous times next day to check up on various matters that could easily have waited. Senior suggests that Vitali needed the patience of a tribe of Jobs to put up with the vitriol and the fury and he concedes that the kid gloves were often off and that Kubrick did occasionally treat him like a vassal.

Yet Vitali could always appreciate the reasons behind the tirades. Moreover, he admits that he sometimes made mistakes and didn't understand what Kubrick required of him. But while Modine says Vitali was often crucified, Mossman says the pair had an unspoken understanding and that Kubrick was always grateful that Vitali had his back. Writer-producer Phil Rosenthal avers that his respect for a genius would end the moment he ordered him to clean a room, but Vitali was forever tidying up after Kubrick and the dogs he let lie on the sofas. He also had to keep reorganising filing cabinets and sorting boxes of prints and documents and Vitali shows us long lists of chores that Kubrick would send him in the expectation that they would be completed within a day.

Among Vitali's tasks was tending to the pets and he recalls how he set up cameras and monitors throughout the house so that Kubrick could keep an eye on an ailing cat named Jessica. Vitali says sick pets floored Kubrick and he would have to keep the business going while he went into purdah over a fading dog. Director Jacob Rosenberg says it's remarkable that a trained actor would sublimate himself in this manner and Vitali merely shrugs in claiming that he was putting in no more into the relationship than Kubrick was prepared to do. But Senior and Redman suggest that Vitali gave up a good deal of family time to serve his master and children Max, Vera and Masha reveal that their father often worked himself to a standstill. They used to resent the fact that he had energy for Kubrick and not for them and that his mood in the evening depended on how their day had gone. But they admire his tenacity and don't have anything particularly bad to say about Kubrick.

Stellan Skarsgård and Pernilla August worked with Vitali in a TV production of Hamlet and, over stills of Ingmar Bergman working, they opine that there are certain directors who inspire such devotion. Jamieson remembers Vitali working with an abscess on a tooth to finish a task that Kubrick had deemed too urgent to give him time off for treatment. Vitali admits that Kubrick ate him up, but Rosenberg claims that being so needed can become addictive. Having been a factotum to a well-known Swedish theatre director, Skarsgård knows how thrilling it is to see things through a great man's eyes. But Vitali lets it be known that he wanted to be there, as he was at Kubrick's service as much as he was at the service of his films. Moreover, he had the privilege of assisting the finest director of the century.

Vitali recalls how his father had witnessed the Germans shooting his mother during the Great War for refusing to say where her resistance fighter husband was hiding. He thinks this left a scar and siblings Tim, Maria and Chris agree that their childhood was often fraught. Vitali was eight when his father died and he remembers his mother looking peaceful when telling him to go to his room and reflect upon what had happened. He felt sad that he wouldn't get to walk with his father to the sweet shop on a Sunday again, but he was also glad he wouldn't get slapped or have to watch his father thrashing his older brothers. Vitali concludes that dealing with his father taught him how to take a step back and that this talent allowed him to cope with Kubrick.

Senior notes how low Kubrick's production costs were and states this was because he did everything himself but act. Vitali managed to get a performance out of him, however, when he recorded a speech for a Directors Guild award and Vitali smiles as he recalls having to operate the camera and the cue cards, as Kubrick kept insisting on more takes. He felt he should end the speech by walking backwards away from the camera, but Vitali persuaded him that a fade would be better.

While making Eyes Wide Shut, Marie Richardson had to do an audition tape with Kubrick and Vitali and the footage shows her looking distinctly ill at ease. During auditions for the red-caped MC, Kubrick called Vitali and informed him that he was to play the role and he was embarrassed at having to tell some well-known actors that their services would not be required. Similarly, Kubrick checked the lighting at the end of a day's shooting to ensure that the images would look the way he wanted and Vitali admits that some professionals disliked having their toes trodden on in such a way. By contrast, Vitali had time to encourage young actors like Treva Etienne, who was playing the morgue attendant, even though he was doubling up as an actor and an on-set assistant (often only leaving at 3am) and was also having to supervise the prints for a Venice Film Festival retrospective.

But Vitali noticed that Kubrick was feeling the pace and was often out on his feet by the end of a day. However, he only knew one way to work and kept up his old regimen. Vitali recalls their last conversation when he received a phone call during a trip to the supermarket and they spoke for two hours with him leaning on his car. He was pleased that Kubrick had been in a gentle mood when he heard that he had died in the early hours of the following day.

With his passing, Vitali found himself having to battle for Kubrick's vision of Eyes Wide Shut and Senior recalls that he was selfless in arguing his master's case in the face of executives who tried to take advantage of Kubrick's absence to bypass Vitali in proposing their own opinions of how the director had wanted the film to look. He was working ridiculous hours in order to monitor the quality of release prints and made himself ill. But, true to self-effacing form, Vitali doesn't want to talk about this. Instead, we move on to the disastrous rush-release of a boxed set of Kubrick films that had critics and Amazon users howling with dismay. Lieberfarb had ordered an immediate remastering of the pictures and Ned Price, the VP of Restoration at Warner, credits the success of the process to Vitali's in-depth knowledge of both the prints and Kubrick's intentions.

As soon as he had overseen that task, Vitali relocated to the United States. Sound engineer Chris Jenkins believes he should be recognised as the standard bearer for Kubrick's genius because he took a lot of flak from people who had put up with Kubrick's prickly personality and wanted some payback. He also frequently found himself caught between Warner Bros and widow Christiane Kubrick and her brother, Jan Harlan. Colourist Janet Wilson says it was exacting work because Kubrick was such a precise film-maker and yet the suits wanted product not perfection and Vitali was accused of creating problems. As a result, his office was withdrawn and he wound up working from a desk in the hallway to ensure the quality of the transfers. One voice opines that Vitali's legacy has been to allow future generations to see Kubrick's films as he had intended them to be seen.

When the Los Angeles County Museum of Art curated a Kubrick exhibition, Vitali was not only snubbed, but he was also excluded and from the gala. Close friend Beverley Wood from Deluxe contacted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences about getting a spoken record from Vitali before it was too late. But her suggestion was also ignored. Yet Vitali took people round the show as a favour and he admits that seeing the lenses and other memorabilia on display afforded him an opportunity to say goodbye. He continues to work for Kubrick without pay and Max has periodically had to help him out financially. But he attends Q&A screenings and always gives his time because he feels duty-bound. As the closing caption reveals, however, Vitali is now advising the estate and working on a Digital 4K restoration of 2001: A Space Odyssey while also building a comprehensive archive of all Kubrick's film elements. He considers this a happy ending.

Displaying dedication far and beyond the call of duty, Leon Vitali is a remarkable fellow who thoroughly deserves to be lauded for his contribution to Stanley Kubrick's distinctive achievement. He remains modest, but clearly feels he is entitled to some overdue fuss or he wouldn't have consented to the making of this profile. His anecdotes are fond and polished, but they tell us little we didn't already know about the infamously difficult and chameleonic director and one rather wishes someone would make a documentary about his early days as a photographer or his struggles as a Hollywood hired hand. But, while he is guarded in his disclosures about Kubrick, Vitali is even more self-censoring when it comes to himself and we actually discover very little about his life outside Childwickbury Manor, his abilities as an actor or his deeper emotions about being a full-time factotum.

The contributions of the likes of Ryan O'Neal, Matthew Modine and R. Lee Ermey sprinkle a little stardust on proceedings. But there are too many suits seizing a moment in the spotlight to say little or nothing of interest. Moreover, there's no sign of Jack Nicholson, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman or even Shelley Duvall and no one from the Kubrick estate felt the need to pay tribute to someone who had played a key role in keeping their show on the road. This suggests a schism crying out to be investigated, but Zierra is too discreet to pry. He also proves overly Kubrick-o-centric, as he fails to mention Vitali's involvement with a pair of Todd Field pictures, In the Bedroom (2001) and Little Children (2006).

Serving as his own cinematographer and editor, Zierra makes solid use of the archive material and Vitali's own memorabilia. He also employs some charming line-drawn animations by AC Yoffe to illustrate scenes featuring Kubrick's cats and Vitali settling down to sleep on a mat in his clothes so that he would be ready to leap up the moment Kubrick called him. This segment implies a puppyish readiness to do his master's bidding and should have led on to an investigation into Kubrick's egotism and the extent to which cineastes have bought into the myth of the all-seeing movie mastermind he did nothing to dispel. But Zierra is much more respectful than this, as he sits at the feet of the 69 year-old Leamingtonian with the straggly hair, bandana and `cor blimey' accent, as he reflects with quiet satisfaction on a job well done.

It should be mentioned that Christopher Nolan has overseen a 4K digital restoration of 2001: A Space Odyssey and that some 70mm prints have been struck to mark the sci-fi landmark's 50th anniversary. Also on the revival trail this week is Robert Wise's The Sound of Music (1965). It's less clear why this enduringly popular, but wildly overrated schmaltzfest is back in cinemas. But back it is.

`No musical with swastikas in it will ever be a success,' Billy Wilder told screenwriter Ernest Lehman, when he heard that he was adapting Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein's final collaboration for the screen. Indeed, actor-director Gene Kelly even less enthusiastic in responding to Lehman's overtures, telling him `to go find somebody else to direct this sh*t'. Welsh housewife Myra Franklin would have disagreed with both Wilder and Kelly, however, as she entered the Guinness Book of Records in 1988 for having seen The Sound of Music 940 times. But, then this had been a production that had confounded showbiz sages from the start.

Paramount had acquired the rights to Wolfgang Liebeneiner's 1956 feature, Die Trappe Familie, with a view to fashioning a drama for Audrey Hepburn. But director Vincent Donehue thought that the story of a nun who marries an Austrian captain and helps his singing offspring escape the Nazis would make a splendid vehicle for Mary Martin and hired Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse to write the scenario. Initially, the Von Trapps were to sing folk songs and hymns, but it was suggested that Rodgers and Hammerstein could be persuaded to contribute an original song. However, they insisted on composing an entire score, although Hammerstein was so preoccupied with Flower Drum Song that he allowed Lindsay and Crouse to complete the book. Yet, while they stuck to key Hammersteinian themes, the narrative's contrivances and melodramatics conspired to make the score seem trite.

It was still well integrated into the narrative, but its contents were rather conventional. The majority of the melodies recalled operetta or folk and were short of complexity and innovation. Moreover, there were no ballets or soliloquies to offer variation from the string of hummable tunes, like `Do-Re-Mi', `My Favourite Things' and `The Lonely Goatherd', whose wholesomeness was out of step with both contemporary Broadway and rock`n'roll. But, with Martin dominating proceedings, the show traded on the sound of its music rather than its subject matter, dramatic integrity or staging. It ran for 1443 performances and won six Tonys before playing 2385 dates in London. The critics deemed it Rodgers and Hammerstein lite. But the lyricist's death, nine months after the Broadway opening, gave the production a cherishability that the movie inherited.

Stanley Donen and William Wyler followed Kelly's lead in rejecting Fox (who had paid a record $1,250,000 for the rights). But Robert Wise signed up without seeing a show that his associate producer, Saul Chaplin, detested. However, they were seduced by Lehman's screenplay and the prospect of working with Julie Andrews. She was always Wise's first choice for Maria, but Audrey Hepburn and Doris Day had been mooted, as had Bing Crosby, Yul Brynner and Walter Matthau before Christopher Plummer finally reneged on repeated refusals to play Von Trapp. Plummer would later dub the film `The Sound of Mucus'. But his stiff presence, especially while lip synching to Bill Lee, is one of its major weaknesses.

Nevertheless, this is easily the most cinematic Rodgers and Hammerstein transfer. There is less emphasis than before on static performance and Wise achieves a greater sense of interaction between the characters and their environment, in order to reinforce the contrasts between the confines of the abbey and the Alpine expanses, and between Austria before and after the Anschluss.

However, a fatal whimsicality infests the picture and bolsters the risible equation of song with freedom, as though the Nazis would be less evil if, like Maria, they surrendered to the power of music. The original score had contained harder edged numbers like `How Can Love Survive?' and `No Way to Stop It'. But they were dropped from the film, leaving Cabaret to prove that the National Socialists could sing, and that they knew some pretty sinister songs.

Consequently, this is a fairy-tale musical, with a folk soul, as for all its Neverland romanticism, the emphasis is firmly on family unity, the sovereignty of the land, and the potency of tradition to withstand change and pernicious ideology. It also employs the classic musical tactic of having Maria assist the Captain in reconnecting with his family, while he helps her find a purpose in caring for his children. Thus, a free spirit once more sets down roots, while a stoic rediscovers his suppressed self, in this instance by agreeing to sing at the Salzburg festival. However, this resort to the backstager gambit of linking the fate of the romantic leads to the success of the show takes on a greater urgency here, as lives depend on the Von Trapps turning their performance into a disappearing act.

The Sound of Music is often labeled a fresh and youthful picture. But it's very much the work of a man who knew he was dying. Hammerstein's nostalgic lyrics are tinged with the regret and despair of an author who isn't sure what the future holds and his evocation of bygone wars and moral rectitude at a time of uncertainty goes some way to explaining the film's extraordinary popular appeal.

It proved virtually critic-proof and took around $80 million on an $8,250,000 outlay. Indeed, it became a cultural phenomenon, whose depiction of resistance to a tyrannical regime helped redefine  America's self-worth following the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK's assassination, the exposure of its own racist shame by the Civil Rights movement and the escalation of the conflict in Vietnam. Yet these notions of liberty and patriotic pride did not go down well in Cold War Germany, where Hollywood's patronising approach to Nazism and the concept of Heimat condemned the most commercially successful musical of all time to ignominious failure. Clearly the vanquished and divided population didn't concur with Richard Rodgers's contention `that anyone who can't, on occasion, be sentimental about children, home or nature is sadly maladjusted'.

Coming so soon after Julien Temple's Suggs: My Life Story, the second Madness biodoc of the year might seem a little de trop. But saxophonist Lee Thompson turns out to be every bit as accomplished at the old raconteuring as his erstwhile bandmate and, consequently, Jeff Bayne's One Man's Madness not only manages to be equally entertaining, but it also proves markedly more inventive.

Borrowing the lip-synching idea from Clio Barnard's The Arbor (2011) and imparting a comic spin by playing a range of characters himself, Thompson harks back to his childhood in NW5. His sister Tracy recalls how their mother Pat used to keep them fed and clothed while their father was in and out of prison, while pals Mike Barson and Chris `Chrissy Boy' Foreman remember not being allowed to play with him because he was always stealing stuff. Pat Thompson compares him to the Artful Dodger and admits he made it difficult to bring up his siblings as nice middle-class kids.

Barson and Foreman describe how they used to nick albums from the local record shop, while Graham `Suggs' McPherson blames his dad for teaching him bad habits. Over a clip from the video for `Embarrassment', we hear about the early days of Thompson's shoplifting career in the lyrics of `Deceives the Eye' before wife Debbie Thompson recalls seeing him disappearing down the road in a black maria after he had failed to turn up for a date. He spent 14 months in Chafford Approved School and emerged with a penchant for graffiti. Known as `Kix' and `Mr B', Thompson and Barson used to tag across North London and Suggs claimed they were all rebels without a brain.

Edie McPherson was less admiring, but Cathal `Chas Smash' Smyth and accountant Colin Young join Suggs, Barson and Foreman in commending Thompson's teenage dress sense and his habit of dyeing his Doc Martens. Debbie also comments on the oddball charisma that won her heart. But Thompson was also a talented musician and Mark `Bedders' Bedford recalls him being influenced by Ian Dury's first band, Kilburn and the High Roads. Suggs chimes in with an anecdote about Thompson snagging his trousers while climbing in through the window of the Tally Ho in Kentish Town to hear them play and explains how he learnt to play the sax by playing along with the likes of Roxy Music. Debbie bought him his first instrument and joins Tracy in admitting that it took him a while to master it. But, as Pat says, he played with `great brioche' and his passion rubbed off on his mates.

Author John Reed wonders whether there was something dodgy about this sax, as the serial number had been scratched off. But Thompson mastered his craft when not doing odd gardening jobs in an old GPO van that used to leave the bandmates reeking of petrol when they used it to lug their gear to gigs. Bedders describes Thompson driving like a maniac to test his mettle, while drummer Dan `Woody' Woodgate remembers him flitting in and out of rehearsals. However, Barson and Foreman were determined to keep him onboard, especially when they started to develop the reggae aspect of the `nutty sound'.

With everyone trying their hand at writing songs like `Rockin' in A Flat' and `Razor Blade Alley', they began to feel they were heading in the right direction. Suggs acknowledges the lyrical influence of Ray Davies of The Kinks and Ian Dury, while musicologist Neil Brand explores how ska came to be a key component of the early Madness style. This led them to see The Specials play live and Jerry Dammers invited them to record `The Prince' for the 2 Tone label. Producer Clive Langer recalls how they could barely play their instruments, with Thompson having all sorts of difficulty staying in tune.

But they went on the 2 Tone tour, although Suggs and first manager John Hasler remember trouble kicking off when they stopped at Watford Services, as Thompson was arrested along with Specials members Lynval Golding and Neville Staple after an altercation with some skinheads. Mrs McPherson and Mrs Thompson concede they had no great hopes for the band, but were pleased their sons were keeping out of trouble. Then, Dave Robinson signed them to Stiff Records after seeing them play at a wedding and he persuaded them to release the Prince Buster cover, `One Step Beyond', as their first single.

Robinson jokes that Thompson had a short attention span and dresses up as Dr Noyes Maybe to describe the symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. However, he doesn't linger on this and cuts away to Brand analysing the music-hall origins of `Land of Hope and Glory', which was one of the songs Thompson got to sing at gigs. However, he was always looking for ways to draw focus when Madness appeared on Top of the Tops and Robinson and Woody recall how he used to devise bits of business to spring during the show, only for the camera to be trained on someone else. When they came to record the video for `My Girl', however, his toy saxophone featured prominently, while he stole the promo for `Baggy Trousers' by being suspended from a crane on a trapeze harness that allowed him to spin in mid-air.

Thompson did have his serious moments, however, as `Embarrassment' was written in response to the flak that Tracy endured when she married a black man. Brand compares the sax solo to something Nelson Riddle might have incorporated into a Frank Sinatra song, but Suggs points out that he managed to address a taboo topic without demonising or patronising anyone and Robinson applauds Madness for being political without ramming it down the audience's throats.

Thompson drags up as opera singer Thommosina Leigh (really Fiona Jessica Wilson) to perform the song before we move on to the band's only No.1. Thompson got the idea for `House of Fun' from the scene in Robert Mulligan's Summer of `42 (1971) in which teenager Gary Grimes tries to buy condoms. Bedders compliments Thompson on the innuendo in the lyrics, while Brand and others highlight the sophistication of the use of piano and sax in mixing fairground barrel organs with ABBA-like pop. Robinson remarks on the innovation within the video, as the band members kept coming up with gimmicky bits that added to the audiovisual appeal of the song.

Success came at a price, however, and Barson left the band in 1984 as there was more to life than Madness. Despite continuing to make albums for Virgin, Suggs believes that they lost their way at this point and Thompson started taking a sequence of non-musical jobs that saw him sticking bills, emptying bins and working in a bicycle shop and a Chinese restaurant. In 1990, he reunited with Foreman to form Crunch and Brand dissects the
`It's Ok I'm a Policeman' with a gravitas that Thompson mischievously debunks as he mimes along to the references to Elvis Presley, James Cagney and the homeless man who's a thorn in our side. Yet, as we hear `Magic Carpet' (which Brand compares to a Weimar cabaret number), Tracy opines that Thompson isn't singing with his natural voice on the Crunch tracks.

As they gigged, Chas Smash got the idea to reform Madness and Thompson pops up as tour manager Franksy and Chrissy Boy's (pearly king) dad, John Foreman, to recall the excitement of starting anew with a catalogue of fondly remembered hits. We see footage of `One Step Beyond' from Madstock and Franksy notes that the gig coincided with a mild earthquake in north London. Accountant Colin Young, lawyer Julian Turton (who muses on a chat about beer in the Southampton Arms) and managers Gary Blackburn and Hugh Gadsdon ponder whether Thompson has matured with age before Franksy compares him to a corked wine.

Bedders waxes about Thompson's lyrics to `Lovestruck' and, in comparing the song to something by The Beatles, Brand claims he can find poetry in the least likely subjects. In order to reinforce and lampoon this statement, Thommasina Leigh sings a few bars, while Suggs admits to having no idea where the song came from, but suspects it came from one of his periodic visits to TommoLand. Barson recalls Thompson writing the lyrics for `Drip Fed Fred' while staying on his houseboat in Amsterdam and insisting that the lead vocals should be performed by Ian Dury. Bedders hails it one of the best of the comeback era songs before Brand assesses the sax solo in `Dust Devil' and the lyrics of `NW5' (cue Thommasina).

Dressed as a typical Cockney crook (complete with mask), Gadsdon describes the Crown Jewels theft gag that Thompson devised while flying over Queen Elizabeth during the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games. DJ Norman Cook recalls him climbing up his set during a show, while Chas Smash marvels at a leap between two towers of a hotel in Australia. We learn about the House of Fun weekends held at Butlin's in Minehead and hear one of Thompson's recent songs, `Whistle in the Dark'. But his bandmates admit that he can be a pain and that some of his gags simply aren't funny. However, he rectifies this by yanking them off screen one by one and replacing them all to lip-sync to their now effusive praise.

As the film itself begins to fragment a little, Dr Maybe returns to define Multiple Personality Disorder, while band PA James O'Gara suggests that if Thompson wasn't in Madness he would be locked up in a secure unit. In fact, he's in two bands, as he also fronts Lee Thompson's Ska Orchestra and lawyer Turton lets slip that he prefers them to Madness. Tracy worries that her brother will always go too far and he proves the point by blacking up as Lynval Golding stating that he should become an actor because he's a natural actor.

Entering the final leg, Bayne lets family members and friends speak as themselves before dozens of tiny Thompsons fill the screen for a closing rendition of `Sit Down and Wonder'. It's a typically ebullient way to end a film that fizzes with fun, while also providing some choice insights into Thompson and his fellow Nutty Boys. Judicious use is made of Dave Robinson's 1982 documentary, Take It or Leave It, to illustrate some of the historical passages. But this is all about Thompson's impersonations, which have more than a touch of Dick Emery and Spike Milligan about them, as he dresses up in outrageous costumes, wigs and make-up to mime along to pre-recorded interviews. He particularly throws himself into parodying Neil Brand's distinctive style of musical appreciation, as he la-las along to the piano in making his points.

Nick Edwards backdrops are equally key to the conceit, however, as they not only add a dimension to the talking-head sequences, but they also allow Thompson to fool around behind the speakers, as he cleans floors, stacks boxes in a van, takes tea in a café, lounges in bed, swims underwater, consults weighty tomes in a library and cycles through an Oxbridge quad. He also crops up as a cat burglar, a Japanese martial artist and a French onion seller. But don't let the sideshow distract you from the revelations about Thompson's creative contribution to Madness's success and his singular approach to life. He may be quite a character, but he's also deceptively serious about what he does.

Some films are almost immune from criticism and one such is Jimmy Edmonds and Jane Harris's documentary, A Love That Never Dies. Produced in conjunction with The Good Grief Project, this is a frank, but empathetic exploration of bereavement, which follows the British husband-and-wife debutants on a journey around the United States to meet other parents who have lost a child at an early age.

On 16 January 2011, 22 year-old Josh Edmonds was killed when a man stepped in front of his motorbike on a busy road in the Vietnamese mountain region of Vu Quang. In a bid to cope after the news was broken by two young policemen, Jimmy Edmonds, Jane Harris and their other children, Rosa and Joe, planted a memorial tree outside the Cotswold village of Chalford. Then, in 2015, they set off on a road trip across the US to see how grief has impacted on other families.

Their first stop is in Gainesville, Georgia to meet Kim Garrison, the mother of Jessi Hawkins, who died of sudden heart failure at 18 while attending a rock concert on 10 September 2000. She still pays regular visits to her daughter's grave and sits on a little stool to talk to her. However, in the immediate aftermath, Kim started drinking to numb the pain of her loss and the breakdown of her marriage. She even hoped to die herself so that she could be free from the thoughts tormenting her. Younger sister Traci Okelley admits that she lost patience with Kim's obsessive mourning and refusal to accept anyone else's happiness because she was so miserable.

Jane is intrigued by what she calls `undignified gried' and recalls the sense of anxiety she felt that Josh's death could damage the family dynamic. Jimmy sought to deal with things by wearing his son's clothes, making him taped messages and photoshopping old photos. But, while they were aware they needed separate space in which to grieve, the couple also recognised the need to share their feelings and bind together.

On reaching Palmdale, California, they meet Dale and Denise, the biker parents of 17 year-old Jesse Martinez, who was killed in a crash after sneaking out to see his girlfriend on 19 November 2014. Despite 10 months having passed, the truth about the accident is still hazy and Denise would rather remember him being alive than consider his death. As a fellow daredevil, however, Dale can understand Jesse's need to rebel and be himself. He is the sole shared son among their seven offspring and helped knit the family together. Yet, while he left a big hole, everyone has rallied round and joined Dale and Denise on a ride to the Grand Canyon to scatter Jesse's ashes on his 18th birthday. They still keep some in their headboard, so he watches over them while they sleep. 

Denise worries about forgetting details of Jesse's life as time goes by and finds solace in looking at old photos and video clips. Jimmy likewise feels closer to Josh watching footage of him skydiving, but still can't come to terms with why he had to die so young. In a bid to help, the family went to Vietnam to see the spot where Josh had crashed, meet locals who remembered the incident and build a small shrine to pay their respects. Yet, Jimmy was seeking to reconnect with reality rather than find closure and he refuses to close the door on his son or his demise.

Arriving in Memphis, Tennessee, Jimmy and Jane go to the plush home of Gayle Rose, who lost her 17 year-old son, Max, in a road accident in Oklahoma on 3 January 2009. She has conversations with her boy and tells Jane that she feels entitled to be a little crazy, as she is a bereaved mother. As Max had spent his last summer working in poor African-American neighbourhoods with former gangster Delvin Lane, Gayle set up Team Max to continue his legacy of `vigilante philanthropy' and has drawn strength from meeting mothers who have lost children to gun violence. But, while she is grateful for the opportunity to help others and open herself up emotionally, she insists that one never really gets over such a trauma.

In trying not to impose her sadness on others, Jane fell ill and Kim Garrison suggests that society needs to be more sensitive towards those experiencing grief, as the world was in the days after 9/11. Having lost her 14 year-old son Jordan to a gunshot on 8 November 2014, Kelly Anglin echoes these sentiments in Farmington, New Mexico. She has left his room exactly as it was when he left it for the last time. But, as husband Daniel and daughter Taylor recall their reaction to Jordan's death, it isn't immediately clear that he was accidentally shot with one of his father's own guns, as he hadn't realised there was still a bullet in the chamber when he was playing with it.

Their pain is still raw and the fact that the camera lingers on Kelly's face as Daniel discusses his relief that she doesn't blame him is somewhat telling. But, while they hope that they can get through the ordeal together, Jane's contention that losing a child is like having part of your future taken away provides a stark reminder of what they still have to face. Proof that the pain never goes away is provided by Duffy St Pierre, a river pilot from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, whose 22 year-old son, Madison, died in a motoring accident on 25 October 2006 in Metairie after he had left late for work after drinking and arguing with his wife. He had been dialling a number on his phone when the crash occurred and sought to come to terms with the situation by returning to work as quickly as possible to find an alternative focus.

He wanted to talk, but his family found sharing difficult and he had to bottle up his emotions. In nearby New Orleans, Denise Pezant struggled to accept her own right to happiness after her 20 year-old son, Nicholas, accidentally overdosed on 5 February 2005. She admits that he had been a bad lad and that she had felt a degree of relief because he was no longer suffering. Needing an outlet, Denise formed a charity called The Compassionate Friends and Duffy was one of her first contacts. Having finally been able to cry, he began to regain his balance and embarked upon a new romance with Denise, who felt she had been given permission to enjoy life again.

A caption informs us that Duffy lost his other son, Christian, to heart failure in 2013 and Denise finds his strength to go on inspirational. It certainly takes a huge amount of courage to bare one's soul before a camera, especially when grief is such a personal and private thing. However, the mourners in this poignant and delicately judged documentary recognise that their experiences can be of help to those still in the depths of despair. One suspects it will serve a more useful purpose on television or in a home entertainment format than it will as a cinema release. But Jimmy Edmonds and Jane Harris have produced a valuable healing resource that should be recommended to anyone dealing with the death of a child.

Irish documentarist Chris Kelly spent six years making A Cambodian Spring, which follows the efforts of three activists to prevent a land grab in a bustling area of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh. However, those unfamiliar with the events that brought thousands on to the streets in 2013 will need to do a good deal of background reading to appreciate fully what is going on and what is at stake, as, while this courageous account draws much-needed attention to a little reported iniquity, it offers little by way of historico-political context.

Following independence from France in 1953, Cambodia developed a landowning class that held sway until the Khmer Rouge seized power under Pol Pot in 1975 and instigated a policy of confiscation that fuelled the genocide that saw between 1.5-3 million people perish. In 1997, Prime Minister Hun Sen took power on behalf of the Cambodian People's Party in a coup. A decade later, he forged a deal with the World Bank to begin developing the lakeside Boeung Kak region of Phnom Penh and it quickly became clear that the contracted company, the Shukaku Development Corporation, had links with Sen's party.

Determined to defend their homes and businesses from flooding as sand is poured into the lake, the residents of Boeung Kak began to organise and Kelly views the resistance through the eyes of working-class mothers, Tep Vanny and Toul Srey Pov, whose intelligence, eloquence and commitment enable them to become prominent figures in the protest movement. He also found a valuable ally in the Venerable Luon Sovath, a Buddhist monk from Siem Reap (300km to the north) who is singled out for censure by Tep Vong. the Great Supreme Patriarch of Cambodian Buddhism, for supporting villagers who have been arrested for protesting against the killing of farmer neighbours who resisted the confiscation of their land. His brother and nephew were among those shot.

Sovath uses various devices to record the actions of the cops, the military and the `monk police' and to make online bulletins condemning the breach of human and property rights. He also visits Boeung Kak in 2011 and makes a trip to New York to publicise the plight of ordinary Cambodians whose voices are ignored by their civic and national leaders. On his return, the Siem Reap prisoners are released on appeal, although they are forced to hand over their land in return for their liberty. Shortly afterwards, David Pred of Inclusive Development International brings the Boeung Kak residents more positive news when he confides that the World Bank has frozen aid to Cambodia for its actions in filling in the lake. In response, governor Kep Chutema is ordered to invite them to City Hall to make a compensatory land grant. But the ceremony highlights a division that has opened up within the campaign, as Srey Pov and Vanny object to former ally Ly Mom (who they believe has sold out) being acknowledged as their spokesperson.

Some time after activist Heng Mom's house is demolished, Srey Pov, Vanny and the elderly, but tenacious Nget Khun are arrested during a demonstration involving opposition youth leader Suong Sophoan and Sovath is bundled into a car by the monk police when he comes to the court to hear that the 15 Boeung Kak women have each been sentenced to two years. Srey Pov's tweenage daughter Ghanga becomes a key figure in the protests to have them released and the security forces have no idea how to cope with screaming kids throwing themselves on the ground outside the courthouse on the day of the appeal. Sovath is also present, along with activist Dhoung Khea and there is unbounded joy when the news comes through that the women will be freed.

On his return to his pagoda, however, Sovath discovers he has been evicted and he tells the awaiting media that the Supreme Patriarch clearly doesn't share his love for the poor and oppressed. After receiving death threats, Sovath seeks asylum in the USA, while Srey Pov felt she needed to devote more time to her young family. Hopes for change were boosted in 2013, however, when exiled opposition leader Sam Rainsy returns to fight a general election. His euphoric reception contrasts with the more muted response Vanny gets when she goes to Washington to ask the World Bank why it has reneged on its promise to freeze funded to a regime that she compares to the Khmer Rouge. Nevertheless, she is lauded by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and gets to meet Christine Lagarde, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

She returns in time for the election and Sovath also risks arrest to vote. He films Rainsy's rallies and joins the protests when Hun Sen claims a contested victory. But Srey Pov remains at home and confides that she fell out with Vanny when they were in prison and suggests that jealousy is at the heart of their feud because Vanny accused her of being a spy. However, attention swiftly shifts away from this saddening revelation to show Vanny being asked by Rainsy not to allow her cause to disrupt a strike of garment workers and she accedes to his request with some reluctance, as her firebrand rhetoric is so focused on securing justice and compensation for the dispossessed who were offered insultingly low sums to buy their compliance.

In the event, riots break out anyway, with barricades being erected and the security forces resorting to tear gas and violence. At least six people are killed, but the imagery conveys an emotive sense of what is happening on the streets rather than hard and clear facts. A caption informs us that Rainsy accepted Hun Sen's offer to become minority leader of the National Assembly, but the wider significance of this development is not explained or explored. We also see Vanny appearing at a human rights convention in Geneva and grainy footage of Srey Pov declaring her to be `a fake angel' who has betrayed the people she claims to represent and is a bad housewife and mother. But Vanny is not accorded a right of reply and the deeper reasons for the breach are left shrouded.

Closing captions state that only 2000 of the original 20,000 lakeside population remain in their homes. But Vanny and Srey Pov appear to be more interested in badmouthing each other than uniting for the common good. The latter accuses Sovath of taking sides by filming alongside Vanny, who is furious when Nget Khun is hit in the head by a flying stone. A tearful Srey Pov looks through her photographs and claims to miss Vanny and accepts that good people can turn bad. But Kelly avoids making any value judgements of his own and deprives the audience of enough balanced evidence to draw their own conclusions.

The immediacy of the footage recorded by Kelly and Sovath plunges viewers into the heart of the conflict, especially when residences are crushed by towering mechanical diggers (one of which has `Funded by the European Union' emblazoned on its side). But pivotal events such as the return of Sam Rainsy are inadequately explained. Similarly, the reasons behind the feud between Srey Pov and Vanny are sketchily covered and its loose ends are frustratingly left untied.

This is fine, as it prompts viewers into doing their own research and keeps them connected with a story that the intrepid Kelly apparently plans to revisit during the forthcoming election. But, while the images of the street clashes are often deeply disturbing and Kelly deftly draws parallels with the disdain shown to the marginalised in other areas of the world, the resolute adherence to the tenets of Direct Cinema leaves a few too many questions unanswered - at least for now.

Having been in office since 20 July 1994, Alexander Lukashenko remains the first and only president of Belarus. He has been described as Europe's last dictator, although there are those who would suggest he faces some pretty stiff competition for that particular epithet. Such is the 63 year-old's grip on power that documentarist Gabriel Tejedor began wondering whether the Belarusian electorate still believes in the concept of democracy. So, in Mayskaya Street, he seeks out an 18 year-old living in the village of Krupki, who is about to vote for the first time.

Rising on a sunny, snowy day to make coffee and smoke a birthday cigarette, Kostia Mashukov introduces himself as an economics student, who lives with his builder father, home-maker mother and three younger sisters on the outskirts of Minsk. Making a toast, his mother hopes he will always love life, his job and his family. Grandmother Galina is 76 and campaigns for Lukashenko because he has brought peace and stability and she would take this over a pension rise every time. However, artist Ales Pushkin, who is about to turn 50 and is reconditioning a state of the Virgin Mary at the local church, believes that war and disaster have cowed the Belorusian spirit so that it accepts strong leadership without a whimper.

Before the 2010 election, Pushkin was jailed for a couple of weeks for subversive paintings and he isn't surprised when Kostia describes the problems facing the economy. But he is grateful to have a job and be able to stay in his home village. Some of Kostia's pals think it's a dull place to be stuck and sneak out at night to drink vodka and beer and flirt with Lisa, who asks Kostia about the girls he knows at college. They would be keen to follow 31 year-old Sergei Leskiec in travelling across the country. When not taking photographs of Pushkin's statues or Vallia and her grandmother, however, he leads a less glamorous life hauling carcasses in a slaughterhouse.

Kostia joins his mother in picking blueberries in the woods and selling them to a local trader for a few euros. Galina reveals that they are outside the 30-mile exclusion zone for Chernobyl and mourns those who moved into the neighbourhood after the disaster at the nuclear power plant in April 1986, as they have all since died with blackened organs as a result of contamination. But, while this shadow still hangs over Krupki, everyone throw themselves into their annual fete, with one family winning a prize for being the most harmonious in the village.

As he watches the presentation, Pushkin wishes that such celebrations could be a genuine expression of Belarusian culture. He tells Kostia that he wishes they could speak in their national language, while admitting that he has never voted in the presidential elections, as he believes they are rigged. Kostia despairs of getting a job in his chosen field of marketing and suspects he will have to move abroad if he is to succeed. Sergei also finds it difficult to make his way as a photographer, especially as people tend to regard pictures as propaganda rather than simple documents. He reveals that he was once summoned by the police ideological section to justify his subject matter, as he had been accused of taking pictures to discredit the regime.

Accompanying his grandmother to the church that replaced the wooden structure demolished by the Soviets, Sergei watches the ritual and listens to the three young women singing beautifully in the choir stalls. As the father of an infant son, he worries that things will remain unchanged for the next 20 years and jokes with Kostia that the authorities employ the same tactics as the Communist Kremlin to convince the public that life is good. He deplores photographing smiling farm workers and stories in the Krupki Messenger exposing people who failed to pay their gas bills. Instead, he wants the news covered honestly in a manner that respects the audience. 

As he returns to Minsk (where Soviet-style buildings dominate the skyline), Kostia discovers that the college has offered two days off to all students who register for the 2015 election. He signs up, only to tick the box rejecting all four candidates on the ballot and watches without surprise as Lukashenko wins with an 83.47% share of the vote. Fireworks fill the night sky. But nobody seems to be celebrating, as the polyphonic singing from the church returns on the soundtrack, as though in supplication for a nation in limbo.

Commenting quietly, but acutely on the lot of ordinary citizens trapped between a Stalinist past and an uncertain future, this makes a worthy companion piece to Dangerous Acts (2014), Madeleine Sackler's profile of the Belarus Free Theatre troupe. A vein of bleak humour marbles the scenes playing out before Joakim Chardonnens's watchful camera, as the younger generation dotes on elders who are bolstering the status quo that restricts them. But a melancholic pall hangs over Krupki, which may have an Internet connection and decent mobile phone coverage, but which looks like a 19th-century shtetl.

A little bit about the history of the community might not have gone amiss, while it might have been nice to hear something from a younger female perspective. But Tejedor's observations are atmospheric and affectionate, as he chronicles the mix of contentment and impotence that has enabled Lukashenko to remain in power with such authoritarian impunity.

Finally, this week, as many of us approach what will probably be the last Royal wedding of our lifetime, the British Film Institute has launched a special selection of films entitled `Wedding Bells'. So, if you don't fancy joining the world's media in focusing on Harry and Meghan, you should seek out this inviting blend of newsreel, home movie and wedding video to see how everyone from princesses to pig breeders have been tying the knot since the 1910s. There are 68 items to choose from and they're all completely free on the BFI Player.